Smelly

//ˈsmɛli// adj, noun, slang

adj, noun, slang ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A smelly person. rare

    "And I can get home myself, thank you. Little smelly."

  2. 2
    a Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle or one of its derivatives. informal
Adjective
  1. 1
    Having a bad smell.

    "She was hesitant to remove her shoes, as her socks were rather smelly."

  2. 2
    Having a quality that arouses suspicion. figuratively

    "The detective read the documents and thought, "Something sure is smelly about this case.""

  3. 3
    Having signs that suggest a design problem; having a code smell. figuratively, slang

    "That smelly code needs to be refactored."

Adjective
  1. 1
    offensively malodorous wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
fetidaromaticbadbad-smellingbuckishdodgy

Example

More examples

"Kareishu is a special smell that comes as old people age. Popular expressions such as: "Ossan kusai" or "Oyaji kusai" (smelly old man) refer to this smell."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From smell + -y.

Etymology 2

A comical pronunciation of the initials SMLE.

Related phrases

smelly frecklecode smell

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.